Sports Will the NFL ignore toxic waste and move a team to Carson?

Ever since the Chargers and Raiders announced their intention to build a new NFL stadium in the city of Carson, California, several questions about the site have been asked but very few have been answered. On Monday we got some clarity on what exactly is going on.

In a radio interview with KNBC-TV Sports Anchor Fred Roggin on AM 980 in Los Angeles, Carson Mayor Albert Robles revealed new insights about the land where they plan to build a stadium. Let’s start with the fact the 168-acre parcel right off the 405 freeway is actually split in to two separate pieces of land.

“Most of that site was a former landfill. It’s contaminated land,” said Robles. “There is a strip, about 11 acres, that was never a landfill.”

So the Chargers and Raiders are buying two separate pieces of property. The 11-acre non-landfill area was purchased for about $20 million. How much did they get the remaining 157 acres of landfill for?

“I don’t know but I think it’s about a dollar, maybe two dollars,” said the mayor. “It’s an insignificant amount.”

According to federal law, if you purchase a piece of contaminated land, you are responsible for it and therefore liable if anything like an environmental disaster occurs on it. With help from the city of Carson, the Chargers and Raiders found a way to shield themselves from any such litigation.

And this toxic waste dump of a neighborhood finally got some clean-up efforts their way last fall, but it's taken forever.

Shell Oil Co.’s new $146 million proposal to remove contaminated soil beneath Carson’s Carousel Tract neighborhood has earned a thumbs-up from city officials, who until now have vigorously fought the oil giant’s cleanup plans.

Carson officials praise the plan because it includes an offer to temporarily relocate residents in hotels while 161,700 cubic yards of petroleum-soaked dirt are dug up from yards and trucked out. It also contains a guarantee that residents will get fair-market value if they sell their homes, despite the contamination history.